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A lucky Liberator crew survives When Allied airmen strapped on their aircraft for a combat mission during World War II, especially when piloting a heavy bomber like the B-24 Liberator over the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the situation usually provoked the same thoughts from pilots and crew members alike. “Will we get this overloaded [...]

Late war aerial combat with the 55th Fighter group by James P. Busha The early strategy of the 8th Air Force fighter groups was to stay with the bombers, escort them, save them, and to not leave them and go chasing after the Luftwaffe. That all changed when General Jimmy Doolittle took over in early [...]

Memories of a Night Intruder Pilot The seemingly endless air war over Europe did not stop when the sun went down. The skies over England came alive almost every night as British Bomber Command sent wave after wave of medium and heavy bombers to selected targets all over the Nazi-controlled continent. These bomber crews had [...]

Memories of an Early War South Pacific Fighter Pilot By the time newly minted U.S. fighter pilots entered WW II in late 1941, they faced a Japanese adversary whose pilots had been flying combat since 1937. Not only were these “flying Samurai” pilots old hats, but they also flew a trump card in the form [...]

From Gliders to the Guinea Short Lines When I was a senior in high school in 1942, I took advantage of the Civilian Pilot Training Program and earned my pilots license flying Waco UPF- 7s and PT-17s off a red dusty Oklahoma airfield near my hometown. As I waited to be called to active duty, [...]

The Day I Nuked Los Angeles During the early 1950s, I fooled around with football, girls, and socializing while I was attending college and really didn’t know what I wanted to do in my life. When I saw the Korean War movie The Bridges at Toko-Ri, I knew right then I wanted to be a [...]

The Korean Combat the U.S. Tried to Forget By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver November 18, 1952: The cloud cover was 500 feet above the freezing Sea of Japan; visibility estimated at two miles in blowing snow as the Siberian blizzard howled over the pitching, rolling shapes of the ships forming Task Force 77. On the flight [...]

A piece of Jurassic aviation is reborn “This is a real prehistoric monster in flight. Once the helicopter was built, these autogiros became dinosaurs,” stated the late Jack Tiffany of Spring Valley, Ohio, at the time, co-owner (with Jim Hammond of Yellow Springs, Ohio) of the Pitcairn PA-18 N1267B (c/n G-65), the only example of [...]